Day two of the 2024 Pro Farmer Crop Tour found us heading north with Dan Sturgill behind the wheel, Yuki Hitomi from Japan as chief statistician and yours truly doing my best to maintain. Today we started out from Indianapolis and sampled north in the counties of Howard, Miami, Cass, White, Jasper, and Benton in IN along with Iroquois, Kankakee, and Livingston in IL. We got out of Indy shortly after 6:30 a.m. and were sampling before 8 a.m.
Corn yields on today’s route were respectable given the area we sampled in IN. Our IN route averaged 182 bu./acre with the high being recorded in Jasper Co. at 250 bu./acre and the low in Howard Co. at 135 bu./acre. The IN soybeans on our route were better in many respects than the crop we sampled yesterday in both IN and OH with the average pod count in the 3x3 measuring 1333 on our route. The high for us was a whopping 2387 measured in Tipton Co. and the low was found in White Co. with 570 pods.
On our route, IL was more like the IL I remember from my first years on the Crop Tour. 200+ bu./acre corn seemed routine. Our route’s average corn yield was a respectable 186 bu./acre. The high we found was a 217 bu./acre yield in Livingston Co. and the low we measured also in Livingston Co. was at 163 bu./acre. The soybean pod counts in the 3’x 3’ averaged 1257 on our route, with a high of 2180 in Iroquois Co. and a low of 875 also in Iroquois Co.
There was some evidence of lodged corn in a sample in Tipton Co. IN and another in Livingston Co. IL. Not widespread but certainly a reminder of the windstorm events mentioned at the previous night’s meeting. Luckily corn plants appear to be anchored rather well and danger of widespread root lodging appear to be slim at this point.
The plant diseases were present but only mattered in a few samples today. An occasional soybean plant was spotted with SDS but overall, disease was a non-factor. With the advent of seed treatments to protect the soybeans and breeding programs selecting for tolerance, SDS has become a far cry from the devastation we saw back in the early 2000’s. In corn, gray leaf spot was a factor in the first sample pulled this morning along with some tar spot for good measure. Someone must not have got the memo that conditions were favorable for their development and didn’t bother to treat.
Insect pressure was light again in the corn today, but some insects were making an impact or have the potential to do so in soybean fields. We saw a few token Japanese beetles and bean leaf beetles crawling around in some soybean fields. The bean leaf beetles bear watching as they can clip the pods prior to harvest. They can also feed on pods causing mold to occur on the seeds as well as transmitting pod mottle virus.
We did see one field of soybean aphids over threshold today in White Co. IN. Numerous multi-colored lady beetles were noticed when walking into the field. It didn’t take much imagination to determine what they were feeding on. In addition, there was evidence of aphid “mummies” caused by tiny parasitic wasps. The time to spray this field was probably past. The damage was already done, and Mother Nature was stepping in.
All in all another good day on the Crop Tour. No rain expected and temperatures are supposed to remain moderate with deceasing cloudiness as we sample our way across IL to Coralville IA tomorrow night.